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Monday, September 5, 2011

Some Thoughts on the Seahawks Win Over Oakland

By Wyatt Lyles

In the Seahawks preseason finale, a 20-3 win over the Raiders, they finally gave us fans something to be happy about. Not only did they not allow a touchdown the whole game, but they actually looked good out there. While the team may not have looked like one of the elites like Green Bay or New England, they looked much better than in previous weeks. At least to me, there looked to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Since I’m sure you guys have either seen the game or read numerous full recaps of the game, I won’t bore you guys with a recap on here. Instead, I’ll just give my thoughts and evaluations of what went down Friday night.

Let’s start with (what else?) the QB. Tarvaris Jackson was in the game for all but the final 39 seconds of the first quarter, and I have to say that he looked pretty good. Well, he looked better than in previous weeks. Offensive line issues aside, Jackson would often hold onto the ball way too long while in the pocket when he was given time by the line. That was not the case on Friday. He actually was getting rid of the ball in a timely manner and making some good throws. On his first drive, he marched the team right down the field to the red zone and was looking like they would get a TD early. That was until he reverted to his old self and made a HORRIBLE decision to try and thread the ball between two defenders to hit Golden Tate in the endzone. This pass was easily picked off and ran back about 20 or so yards. Tarvaris, you were doing so well. He did better on the next drive, and even completed a deep pass to Tate for 43 yards. This drive ended with a FG. All in all, I have to say that it was nice to see him actually have a decent game for the time he was in. I’m pretty interested to see what he’s going to do against the 49ers.

Charlie Whitehurst played as well. I would say that this was his worst game of the four that he’s played in. Not that he played a bad game, but just that he didn’t do anything to really wow me. He moved the ball pretty good down the field and made some nice reads, but also made some poor reads that showed why he’s still the backup QB for this team. In my mind, Jackson is the lesser of two evils and should be the starting QB for the team at this point in time.

The offensive line looked better as well. They were actually giving the QBs time to make good decisions. There was no more rushers flying right off the defensive line to sack the QB. In fact, there were no sacks allowed by the line. Well unless you count the one where Whitehurst pretty much ran into a lineman and kind of sacked himself that is. So overall they looked much better than in previous weeks.

It wasn’t without a cost though. LG Robert Gallery suffered a knee injury early on in the game. It wasn’t just a minor one either. While there hasn’t been an official word on how long he’ll be out for, Pete Carroll said after the game that the injury was significant enough that his status for the season opener is in question. Let’s hope that it’s nothing major. We hopefully will have Russell Okung by the opener, so it’d be a bummer to get him back and then lose Gallery.

Keeping with injuries for a quick second here, the defensive line also suffered a substantial injury. DE Jimmy Wilkerson also injured his knee during the game, and this one was definitely a major one. He was placed on IR yesterday, which means his season is over. I really hated for that to happen since I liked what I had seen so far from him and was looking forward to seeing what else he had.

Speaking of defense, they looked pretty darn good out there Friday night. As I said at the beginning, they did not allow a touchdown the whole game, which was nice to see. Now, as a disclaimer, I do want to remind you all that this was the Raiders after all. The Raiders suck. So holding them down to a field goal was nice, but take it with a grain of salt. That being said, however, they still looked good. I do want to point out that there were a handful of pass interference penalties throughout the course of the game that could be a cause for concern, but let’s hope that doesn’t become a trend.

Just some quick notes about guys that stood out to me. First and foremost, Golden Tate. He had a great game on Friday. He ended with 79 yards receiving on five catches. It was definitely nice to see him finally get things going and show why he deserves a spot on the team. Another guy was Kris Durham. He had only one catch for 9 yards, but the catch was a nice one. It was thrown a little high, but he used his 6'6" frame to reach up and bring the ball down. This is a guy to keep an eye on throughout the season.

Overall, I think that this game was a perfect one to end the preseason with. The past two games haven’t exactly been confidence inspiring games. In fact, they probably had taken away a lot of the confidence these guys had. So it was nice to see them get a win. Hopefully this shows the team that they do have a chance to do great things this year.

No time to revel in the win though since the season opener is now just a short 6 days away. I cannot wait.